Trump drops hints on his new strategy in Afghanistan

Washington: President Donald Trump speaks at Fort Myer in Arlington Va., Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, during a Presidential Address to the Nation about a strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Donald Trump the distinguished president of the United States, yet again, dropped a mind-blowing, heart-racing and thought-provoking bomb on us in his latest address to the troops at Fort Myer.

Members of the U.S. Military listen as President Donald Trump speaks at Fort Myer in Arlington Va., Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, during a Presidential Address to the Nation about a strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

He started out his address relating to the importance of a victory in this nearly 16-year-old conflict for the Americans.

“My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts,” he said. “But all my life, I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.”

He also related to the wrong decisions made by the previous administration by pulling out of Iraq, in 2011, ‘too soon’ and giving a vacuum to the ISIS to fill in and allowing them to spread and become stronger.

“We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistakes our leaders made in Iraq,” he said decidedly.

Throughout the address, President Trump laid special focus on how the troops “will fight to win”. He said that they have sacrificed too many lives to not hope for a victory anymore and that the troops will be provided all that they shall need to defeat the terrorist communities in Afghanistan.

He also mentioned that the security threats they face in Afghanistan are immense and that “today, 20 US designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the highest concentration in any region, anywhere, in the world.”

According to him, Pakistan has too often been giving safe haven to ‘ages of chaos, violence, and terror’ and that the threat is worse because of their tense relations with India (also nuclear armed) which might lead to conflict.

He says America and their partners are committed to stripping terrorists of their territory by cutting their funding and ‘exposing the false allure of their evil ideology’. This administration, Trump said, will learn from history to prosecute this war and that their strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically as they move from a ‘time-based approach to one based on conditions’.

Hence, there will be no more talking about the numbers of troops or the plans for further military activities because that way, the enemies are forewarned. He says that ‘conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy from now on’.

He also wants to change the approach on how they have dealt with Pakistan so far.

‘We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars, at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change and that will change, immediately. It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order and to peace.’

He has also decided to further develop their strategic partnership with India in terms of economic assistance. He said that there would be no ‘blank-check’ for America’s engagement in Afghanistan.

His words “since my inauguration we have received record breaking success” and “but one way or another we will solve this problem, I am a problem solver” showed how confident he is about his newly devised strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia.

“We are not nation building again” he cleared “we are killing terrorists.”

As a result of his address, a new threat has been posed to Pakistan in their current politically unstable state.

This address will no doubt, weaken the relations between the US and Pakistan as the US obviously sides with their antagonist neighbor, India.